Conclave Poses Challenge To Opus Dei

April 17, 2005|By Matthew McAllester Newsday

ROME — Sure, Peter Bancroft said, he does use a small, cotton whip to lash his back or buttocks once a week (in private). And yes, most days he wears an abrasive metal chain, a cilice, around his thigh for a couple of hours that causes him discomfort but no lasting damage.

But no, neither he nor anyone in Opus Dei is a pain-loving murderer like Dan Brown's villain in the enormously successful novel The Da Vinci Code.

"As soon as you meet an Opus Dei member," said Bancroft, sitting in an ornate room in the headquarters of the conservative Catholic lay group and showing no visible signs of self-mutilation, "it doesn't take long to figure out that not all Opus Dei members are masochistic monks."

No part of the Church has been so shrouded in conspiracy theory in recent years as Opus Dei, which has 85,000 members worldwide and espouses a very conservative form of Catholicism. Critics within the Church worry about its wealth and influence; Web sites accuse it of being a cult, and Brown's best-seller casts it as a dark, violent force within Christianity. Even its own members acknowledge it is too secretive and defensive.

Now it faces a new challenge far from the realm of fantasy: As 115 cardinals meet in conclave Monday, there is no guarantee the next pope will treat Opus Dei with the favor Pope John Paul II bestowed upon it.

Among Opus Dei members, "Their basic concern is that they might actually end up among the big losers" of the conclave, said John Allen, Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter and author of a forthcoming book on the group.

But the men and women within Opus Dei insist its future is secure.

At stake is the influence of an organization that Allen estimates has assets worth $2.8 billion worldwide and $344.4 million in the United States.

Critics within the Church usually prefer to speak anonymously about Opus Dei, citing fear of retribution and an unwillingness to make tense relationships worse.

"They're very, very powerful. ... They're so powerful it frightens people," said a priest in Rome who has regular contact with Opus Dei. Critics say the group deliberately sets out to recruit elites: politicians, executives, journalists, lawyers and, of course, senior churchmen.

Chief Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls is a member. Two of the 115 cardinals expected to vote in the conclave are members, and two top candidates for pope, Joseph Ratzinger and Dionigi Tettamanzi, are said to be close to the group.

Under John Paul, Opus Dei made important gains. In 1992, he beatified its founder, Spanish priest Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer. Ten years earlier, the pope had given the group the status of a personal prelature, essentially turning it into the Church's only diocese without geographical boundaries.

Despite Opus Dei's privileged status, some observers say its influence is overstated. "I think there's a lot of fantasizing about Opus Dei, but I don't think there's so much grounds for that," said a Colombian priest, the Rev. Sergio Bernal, a professor of social doctrine at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and a Jesuit, one of the clerical groups considered to be at odds with Opus Dei.